CONTINUED DECLINES EXPECTED IN 2010

Hometrack claims the toughest markets are the East Midlands (where sales take an average 14.2 weeks); North-West England (13.6); Wales (13.4); West Midlands (13.3) and South-West England (12.4).

Hometrack's Richard Donnell estimates over eight million households have either no mortgage, or one below 50% of the value of their home, creating a large pool of 'potential movers' able to work within the tight limits set by nervy lenders.

But extreme caution means few of these people want to move, unless a change in their circumstances demands it.

"We are starting a year when the housing market is at the mercy of the economy and rising unemployment," Donnell says.

"A broad-based recovery in the housing market will require a major turnaround in consumer confidence which is some way off yet."

Savills, the London and country agents which predicted a 25% fall in prices from the peak in mid-2007, thinks 2009 prospects hinge largely on how repossessions - which could top 75,000 during the year - are handled.

It says 'vulture' funds will try to grab them at prices well below minus-25% from the peak. If they succeed, they could push prices even lower.

More optimistically, however, Savills says it is arguable that, in the prime London and southern markets, most of the anticipated falls have already occurred.

"Where properties are 'forced sales', they are generally already discounted by -25% to -30%."

Savills also thinks the average gross yield on residential property (before mortgage repayments are allowed for) has risen from 4.6% to 6%.

This, it says, will eventually draw investors back into the market during the year as they lose patience with cash earning no interest.

"We are beginning to see a market where supply and demand for property is more evenly balanced," Savills says.

"Our view is that this puts us somewhere between the latter stages of the house price falls, and nearer the first of many stages in the recovery process.

"The first stage is characterised by increased activity in the traditional residential investment markets of prime Central London and the higher profile South East towns and university cities."

SPARE ROOMS EARN OWNERS - AND TENANTS - EXTRA CASH

The average weekly spend on mortgage repayments is £138.80, says Nationwide BS, which accounts for about 14% of total household weekly spend.

But canny buyers with a spare room - or even a spare sofa - are clawing some of that back by the website Crashpadder.com, launched by digital consultant Stephen Rapoport last November.

"Most people can use some extra cash, and most people also like to make new friends, as I realised on my gap year a decade ago," the 27-year-old says.

"My system achieves both those aims by working on the assumption that most people are good and decent. There are few malicious people out there who are nasty for the sake of it."

In three months, Crashpadder has identified 350 spare rooms across the UK, and other rooms - or, at least, places to sleep - in 21 countries. Nightly rates in the UK range from £10 - literally for the hire of a sofa - to £70 for a room with private bathroom.

Around 200 of the rooms are in London, where the strongest demand is for Friday and Saturday nights.

"Anybody letting a spare room for those two nights each week at £50 per night could earn about £1,200 per year - enough to pay the mortgage for a couple of months, or pay for a holiday for two," says Rapoport.

Householders can earn up to £4,250 per year tax free under the Government's rent-a-room scheme. Rapoport says most owners registered with him will be able to take the money they earn tax-free.

After being made redundant from his last job, he spent months, and several thousand pounds of redundancy pay, to build a reservations system which he thinks is safe and secure.

"Payment is made in advance by credit card, which enables me to verify identity and address," he says.

"I then advise the host that somebody wishes to use their spare room.

"We advise people with crashpads - both owners and tenants, providing landlords agree - to take basic precautions, and to contact visitors online in advance of a stay. They may also wish to check the reason for a booking.

"After every booking, our site carries feedback from both hosts and visitors - an effective way of ensuring that certain standards are met on both sides.

"Obviously, people who go to bed early won't appreciate it if their guests make a noise far into the night. There has to be some degree of 'give and take' in all these arrangements."

Outside London, Crashpadder.com is gathering addresses in various centres including Isle of Wight (especially for Cowes Week), Cornwall, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh.

Rapoport says they had a fantastic response to the launch, across the UK.

"We rely heavily on word of mouth, and getting talked about in blogs and forms.

"We're now seeing requests for spaces in key tourist and business locations, which could offer Crashpadders in those areas an opportunity to boost their bank balance."

On the site, potential guests hunt for accommodation by location, date, comfort level and price. Hosts specify the sort of guests they prefer, available dates and extras available, including wireless internet, breakfast or off-street parking spaces.

:: INFORMATION: www.crashpadder.com has been nominated for honours in the Kent Innovation Challenge for 2009.

NEW HOMES COULD BE SWITCHED TO TENANTS

Builders planning to offload dozens of new homes to Government-funded housing associations, which make them available to key workers and others unable to buy on the open market, look likely to have their hopes dashed.

A report in the trade journal, Building magazine, says the number of unsold new homes on the books of housing associations has "hit a peak of more than 10,000."

More than 4,500 have been standing empty for over six months.

The likely result is that housing associations will have to switch many of their new homes over to rented use, with a subsidy paid by Government, for the foreseeable future. This is because many associations face a tight cash squeeze, even though they sold nearly 3,900 new homes in the last quarter of 2008 worth £272m.

One reason for slow sales by housing associations may be the disappointing take-up of the Government's Social HomeBuy programme, a key policy to widen the take-up of home ownership launched in April 2006. The programme went nationwide in spring 2008.

The scheme enables tenants, in homes owned by councils or housing associations, to buy a share of a property from 25%, and to pay rent on the remainder. Over time, they increase their mortgage to take 100% ownership of their home.

Only 290 families had taken advantage of the scheme by December 2008, say Conservatives, but barely 100 of the country's 1,900 housing associations, are making the scheme available.

This is a far cry from the 5,000 annual target suggested when John Prescott, the former deputy prime minister, originally unveiled the scheme.

Builders usually have to provide a proportion of new homes on all new developments for housing associations as a condition of planning permission. Of 107,000 new homes started in 2008, some 72,000 were earmarked for private sector sale, while 35,000 were for housing associations, which have largely taken on the role of local authority housing departments.

As conditions in the open market worsened through 2008, many builders sold additional properties to housing associations to get them off their books.

This was partly funded by the new quango, The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), which received cash from Government to keep construction work going on sites which ground to a halt because of a lack of private buyers.

Now, it seems, even housing associations have run out of buyers even though Social HomeBuy, which enables occupants to part-buy and part-rent, gives a measure of protection against falling prices which buyers don't get in the open market.

Around five million people live in homes managed by housing associations, and more than one million are expected to join the waiting list for housing association homes in the next two years.

:: INFORMATION: Further details of various HomeBuy schemes are available on www.direct.gov.uk.

SUMMER 2009 COULD BE TIME TO SELF-BUILD

Land prices, already down by more than 30% from their peak two years ago, are falling faster than house prices, which could be a big attraction to self-builders who want to design and build their own place.

Ted Stevens, chairman of the National Self-Build Association (NSBA) says: "Getting a self-build mortgage is still relatively straightforward, because lenders know the value of a self-built home should comfortably exceed land cost plus construction cost.

"When the home is finished, there is usually a comfortable margin of security for the lender.

"Builders will also work at competitive prices when construction is so badly hit by the downturn. Self-builders who take the plunge in 2009 could be sitting pretty when the market - and house prices - eventually recover."

The NSBA has outlined a six point plan to beat the housing crisis by significantly increasing the number of homes constructed by self-builders.

It wants local authorities to designate areas for self-builders, but many self-builders buy an older home on a large plot and knock it down to start again.

But are self-builders ready for the challenge? That question could be answered at The National Homebuilding and Renovating Show, scheduled for Birmingham's NEC on March 19-22.

In its 17th year, the Show will include over 500 exhibitors, 96 free seminars and masterclasses, along with The Eco Homes Show and specialist technical zones. More than 40,000 visitors are expected to turn up over four days.

Jason Orme, editor of Homebuilding and Renovating Magazine says: "As a rule, lenders will, sensibly, not lend more than 75% of the cost of land and 60% of build costs, although some lenders, such as Buildstore, lend up to 95% of land and build cost."

Significant savings can also be made on stamp duty: on plots costing £125,000-£250,000, 1% is charged, rising to 3% between £250,000 and £500,000, and 4% on £500,000-plus.

As plot price usually accounts for about a third of the final value of the house, this can save a five figure sum in stamp duty.

Added savings come from the VAT zero-rating allowed on self-build projects.

House designer and civil engineer Stephen Evans of Erigo Ltd, who has several self-build projects under way says: "The concept works best when clients are clear about what they want to achieve and how much they can spend; there is no point designing a half million pound house for a client with a £300,000 budget."

Ted Stevens says group self-build schemes, managed skilfully, can show the biggest savings: a dozen or more families buy a large site and carve it into equal plots for three and four-bedroom family homes. "Construction firms are likely to quote competitively for part of the work when they have so little work to do on private sector housebuilding projects," he says.

"Self-builders tend to fall into two groups: over-fifties, whose children have flown the nest and already have a substantial amount of equity in their previous home, and younger families in their twenties, thirties and early forties who realise self-build can give a better quality home than they could afford to buy from a developer.

"Many of them are still playing a waiting game, to see if prices fall lower. By this summer, I suspect, it might be the moment to get cracking," Stevens says.

:: INFORMATION: Advance tickets, costing £10 each, for The National Homebuilding & Renovating Show are available on 0871 945 4547 and at www.national.homebuildingshow.co.uk. At the door, tickets cost £14.

For a chance to win two free tickets to the show, simply send your name and address to (insert newspaper name), HHB&R Show, Centaur Exhibitions, 50 Poland Street, London W1F 7AX. The first 20 entries drawn get two tickets.

Further information on self-build is available at www.nasba.org.uk.

ends